動名詞 : その変化と発達の歴史

概要

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This paper treats of the historical developement of the English gerund. Originally there had been in Old English nothing but verbal nouns whose syntactic function was merely nominal. Through the influence of Latin syntax as was exercised in the Anglo-Saxon glosses or Biblical translations of `Vulgate Version', verbal nouns acquired the grammatical status of gerunds in late Old English or early Middle English. In §1 we give the grammatical description of Latin sentences with `gerundivum' and try to explain whether their translations in OE or ME are correct. In the next stage of development the gerundial ending -ing has absorbed the participial ending -ind (or -end) by reason of their phonetic similarity(§2). Moreover, phonetic similarity has also caused the inflectional infinitives ending in -inne(-enne) to acquire the gerundial ending -ing(§3). In §4 the fact is shown that the genitive case first appeared as the grammatical subject of the gerund. The time of the first appearance of the passive and perfect gerund is given in §5, and the competition of `mixed gerund' with `of+gerund' is seen in §6. The construction `cannot help+gerund' and its analogues are described in the last section.
松山東雲女子大学・松山東雲短期大学の論文